By Jeri Lewis Edwards
How could you have known we would
become utterly, inexplicably lost
without that misplaced map?
And that razor cut trail cloaked in dust,
talus, edged felsite, gneissic-banded rubble.
We witnessed those tumbled stones—
they weren’t cairns from your past,
no markers to guide us.
We couldn’t help but notice your narrow game
swaths, up boulder jutted cliffs—too exposed.
We witnessed attempts on your ghost treks,
your offshoots to nowhere—none of them
had tread before us.
We risked your insignificant
drainages as catclaw groped our clothes,
tore our flesh, while burrs jumbled our socks,
and your gnats made relief
maps of our scalps.
We walked reverently through a heavily
populated rattlesnake den, witnessed
them coiled on your car-sized ledges,
countless restful in the darkened hollows,
sizable ones slithered from us through your
grassy corridor.
We searched for your hidden springs
as if they were our unclaimed inheritance.
You heard our arguments over
which coordinate to take—we
had tried them all it seemed—yet, not once
did we give up on you, your granite
hardened silence, and we were, we confessed,
consumed by all this severe beauty...
But, oh, that one solitary Gila Monster we
saw in the dry wash, its chunky body painted
like ancient pottery, its lumbering legs, determined
singularities...Somehow it emboldened us in
its direction, down your unbidden contour,
down your dry falls,
your entangled detritus,
your decayed deadfall,
down your free fall drop-offs,
down
down
down
to where, finally, we found our way.
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“Wilderness Experienced” is our shared stories and musings about recent experiences in our nation's Wildernesses. Stories focus on the virtues of Wilderness and/or challenges facing the National Wilderness Preservation System. We want to hear your story! Learn more and submit a story.
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Comments 28
Just, Lovely...lonely and quiet. really enjoyed the 'stroll'. More please!! Jeri was my Mom's name too and this was like a note from her! Thank you.
My heart hopes SO much that the RIGHT thing is done so that ALL living can live their life.????. What if YOU were any OTHER living, how would YOU want to be treated and live your life? ????
Love this poem, it made me feel as if I was there with you. Thank you ??
That was GREAT!!! I love that! Keep on writing
I love the description of the Gila Monster, very detailed and poetic. Greetings from a biologist, Belgrade, Serbia, Europe. Miroslav
The Gila Monster, both as messenger from an earlier human society and as spirit guide, transforms this mostly left-brain-hemisphere poem into something remarkable and truly beautiful.
Beautiful!! I "think" this is where a group of us grad students from the U of AZ went with my intrepid advisor and one of the herbarium curators back in the 1990s. Exhausting, breathtaking, character-building, thank you for capturing an Arizona hike so well. The Superstitions were particularly wild!
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing